condition raisins – put in a plastic bag, pour water inside and immediately pour it out. This is to prevent the raisins from absorbing the moisture from the pudding (refer to photo above)

When making pudding, prepare a small pot. Add in sugar, milk and vanilla extract. Cook with medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. Set aside and leave it to cool until room temperature.

Grease baking trays with butter.

Thaw bread. Cut the crust off the bread (this is optional). Spread butter on one side of each slice. Then, cut the bread into triangles with 10 smalls and 3 large (as shown in photo below). Apply butter to the edges of the large triangles as they will be placed on the top of the pudding.

Arrange a layer of bread with buttered-side up at the bottom of the dish. Do not leave any gap if possible. Add in raisins and a sprinkle of cinnamon powder. Then, finish with the top layer by repeating with bread, raisins and cinnamon powder.

In a mixing bowl, beat eggs lightly. Pour in milk mixture in step 2 and stir well. Strain the mixture into another clean bowl.

Gently pour the milk mixture over the top and side of the bread. Let it soak for 30 minutes. To make sure the top layer of bread is fully soaked up with the liquid, use a spoon to press the bread down once or twice.

Preheat oven to 180 °C.

Place the dish on a baking tray. Add hot water to fill up half of the dish. Bake at 180 °C for 25 minutes and 160 °C for 10 minutes.

Remove the baking dish from the oven and brush a layer of honey over the top of the bread. Bake a further 2 minutes until the top is golden brown and the custard is set (You will see the bread puffing up slightly).

Allow it to cool and firm up slightly before serving.

Notes:

You can also use panettone, brioche or wholemeal bread. Avoid using pre-sliced bread that is too thin (ie 1cm).

This technique (water bath/bain marie) helps to cook the pudding with more uniform heat as well as prevent it from drying.

This recipe also works well with square or rectangle baking dish if the bread can fit well into it.

I always think that bread pudding looks like a hard object to photograph because of the texture and boring color. But it doesn’t apply to you at all. I’m loving how you styled this food! So much to learn from you. I now feel that I like bread pudding using Asian’s toast… American bread is not always so good. Your bread looks like Japanese toast. Yum…

I’ve never thought much of this; and now you mention that it’s stale bread? Your version definitely did not look stale whatsoever had you not mention it; it looks like something spun by a professional gourmet chef for a competition!:D
Lovely and great job done